The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has affirmed the murder convictions of two men whose cases originated in Mobile County, rejecting appeals in both matters in an order issued last week.
The appellate court upheld the conviction of Joseph Hunt Booth, who was found guilty in 2018 of killing 23-year-old Antonio Crawford. Crawford was shot three times with a shotgun on a Sunday afternoon in April 2014 at a house on Houston Street that belonged to Booth. Prosecutors said at trial that the shooting stemmed from a dispute over money Crawford believed he was owed from a drug transaction, and that Crawford had pressed Booth to get the funds from his elderly parents, who were visiting at the time of the shooting. A jury convicted Booth, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He challenged the conviction on appeal, but the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled against him, leaving the sentence intact.
In a separate case, the same appellate panel upheld the conviction of Aubrey Allen Rosson, 61, who was found guilty of murdering Duane Massingale and assaulting Massingale’s wife, Veronica Massingale, in the first degree. According to evidence presented at trial, Rosson had been drinking at the Massingale residence on June 27, 2016, when he announced that he intended to kill the couple. He then shot Duane Massingale multiple times, killing him. Veronica Massingale was also shot and struggled with Rosson before attempting to flee, at which point she was shot again. Prosecutors told jurors she survived the attack by pretending to be dead until Rosson left the scene. Rosson was sentenced to life in prison for the murder conviction and an additional 10 years for the assault conviction.
Both rulings came from the same round of appellate review handed down by the court in Montgomery, which hears challenges to criminal convictions from across the state, including cases originating in Mobile County circuit courts. Appeals to the Court of Criminal Appeals typically argue that errors occurred during trial, sentencing, or the handling of evidence, but the court found no basis to overturn either verdict.
The decisions close out lengthy legal proceedings in two cases that drew significant attention in the local community when the crimes occurred. Both defendants remain incarcerated under the sentences handed down by trial courts, and with the appeals now denied, those sentences stand as the final word in each case absent further review by a higher court.